Send Links From Desktop Browsers To Chrome For iOS Without Jailbreak [Mac]

With the recent release of some of the most popular desktop web browsers for the Android and iOS platforms, users have been looking for ways to to efficiently manage browsing websites between desktops and mobile devices. We recently told you how you could send links from Safari in iOS to the Chrome app that was recently made available, and quickly became one of the top apps in the App Store. Web2Go is a free Mac app that works with a $0.99 iOS companion app and lets you send links you’re viewing on your Mac to your iOS device. The transition isn’t direct, i.e., the Web2Go iOS app acts as a mitigator and sends the link to the browser. The catch, or rather, the slight shortcoming, is that you cannot send links in bulk. The app only reads the current tab you are looking at, and sends it to your iDevice’s Chrome app.

Download, install and run Web2Go on both your Mac and iOS device. Both devices must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. The Mac app runs in the Menu Bar and allows you to set a password for establishing a connection with an iOS device.

If you want to set up a password for protecting the connection, right click the icon in the Menu Bar and select Set Password. A new window will open, asking you to set a password. Enter it (and don’t forget it later, there is probably no recovery option here) and click Save.

Open the Web2Go app on your iOS device (we tested with the iPhone 4 running iOS 5.1.1) and wait for it to detect your Mac. Once detected, your Mac will be listed, click it, enter the password (if you opted to protect the connection) and wait for the app to establish a connection. Once the connection has been established, setup is complete.

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Return to your Mac and in your browser (supports Safari, Chrome and Firefox) open a website. You can navigate to any page of the site. When you want to open a URL that you’re viewing on your Mac on your iOS device, make sure the window and required tab are selected. Go to the Web2Go app on your iOS device, and you will notice that the Mac entry is accompanied by a URL. Click it and the webpage will open in Chrome. There doesn’t appear to be a way of getting the iOS app to open links in Safari.

The good thing about this app is that it lets you send links easily without needing to jailbreak your iOS device. There is still the need to incorporate some way of sending links in bulk, but even so, it is a fairly good app that is priced reasonably. Also, since the app is almost brand new, you can expect the features to improve over time.